Furniture retailer Rooms To Go plans to build a ‘prototype’ store in Daytona. The 3-in-1 store would replace and be triple the size of the chain’s existing store on ISB.
DAYTONA BEACH — The trend of retailers vacating older stores for new ones continues in Daytona Beach.
Rooms To Go, one of the nation’s largest furniture retailers, plans to build one of its first new-format “prototype” stores here.
The store will be along Interstate 95 at Tomoka Town Center and is expected to replace the chain’s smaller existing store directly three miles to the south at the intersection of Williamson and West International Speedway boulevards.
“Rooms To Go has the site under contract,” confirmed Jeff Preston, managing partner of North American Development Group, developer of the 400,000-square-foot Tomoka Town Center “power lifestyle” shopping complex.
The five-acre site is between the new Sam’s Club store that opened in July to the north and the Tanger Outlets mall to the south that opened in November 2016.
At 55,400 square feet, the Rooms To Go prototype store will be more than three times the size of the chain’s longtime existing 16,880-square-foot store on ISB, said Peter Weitzman, a vice president with the Hillsborough County-based furniture retail chain.
“It’s going to be one of the largest we’ve ever built,” he said, adding, “We’re thrilled. We love Daytona. It’s been a good market for us.”
The prototype store will actually be a three-in-one location for the chain, with separate store fronts for its Rooms To Go, Rooms To Go Kids and Rooms To Go (outdoor furniture) Patio stores.
Most of the chain’s stores are currently around 40,000 square feet in size, Weitzman said. The existing Daytona store was much smaller because it was one of the first for the chain, which was founded in 1991.
The prototype store is expected to open in either early or mid-2021 and will employ more than 50 workers. The store on ISB, which will close once the prototype store opens, currently employs 27 workers.
Seffner-based Rooms To Go, whose headquarters is just east of Tampa, opened its Daytona Beach store at 2375 W. International Speedway Blvd. in 1993, according to Volusia County property records.
Weitzman said his company will either lease the old store to another business or sell it.
The retail chain recently announced plans to open five prototype stores, one each in Daytona Beach, Tampa and Atlanta, and two in Orlando.